of the Male Bustard. 113 



Bloch et Tiedemann \ut supra cit.'\, ce sac serait propre non- 

 seulement au male, mais encore a la femelle. Mais il faut ne- 

 cessairement, que ces observateurs se soient laisses aller a quel- 

 que illusion, puisque j^ai examine dix sujets femelles, qui ne 

 m^en ont pas presente le moindre indice. Je dois done adherer 

 a Fopinion de MM. Douglas et Home \ut supra cit.'], qui avait 

 ete deja hypothetiquement eraise par Schneider \loc. cit,~\, et 

 adniettre que cet organe ne se rencontre que chez le male. 



" Quant a I'autre assertion de M. Home, qui etablit que le 

 sac en question n^existe pas chez les jeunes sujets, je n'ai pas 

 ete en mesure de la verifier ; cependant je ne serais pas loin de 

 penser qu'une jeune femelle ait ete prise, par cet auteur, pour un 

 male; une semblable meprise, mais en sens inverse, semble 

 avoir induit en erreur M. Tiedemann." 



It is noticeable from this, that neither Meckel nor his transla- 

 tors assert that they ever found the pouch at all ; and that such 

 mistakes as they attribute to Home and Tiedemann are possible 

 on a cursory examination, I think, is quite likely. M. deRoche- 

 brune (Trans, de la Soc. Linn, de Bordeaux, iv. p. 167) has re- 

 marked, that when the female has come to her full growth, at the 

 age of from three to four years, she exhibits the same lateral 

 plumes from her chin as does the male, but in some degree less 

 developed. The hint thrown out by Sir Everard Home appears 

 to have been taken by ornithologists in India; for, in 1832, 

 Colonel Sykes (Proc. Comm. Sci. & Corr. Zool. Soc. ii. p. 155), 

 speaking of " Otis nigriceps " — Eupodotis edwardsi of Gray — 

 states that the male is '^ supplied with the remarkable gular 

 pouch common to the Otis tarda." And to have done with this 

 part of the subject at once, it is better to say here, that some 

 twenty years later, in 1855, Lieutenant Burgess also mentions 

 (P. Z. S. 1855. pp. 32, 33), on the authority of Mr. A.F, Davidson, 

 that the male of the same species, about breeding-time, '^ is fond 

 of mounting some elevated spot, and then strutting about with 

 the tail erected and spread, the wings drooping, and the pouch 

 in the throat inflated with air and looking like a large bladder." 

 This writer further adds, in corroboration of the assertion, that 

 another informant had told him tha* " he had seen a Bustard 

 with a white-looking bag hanging below the neck." I may 



VOL. IV. I 



